“You’re our mother,” I said. “You’ll always be slightly embarrassing to us.”

We had a little laugh, then she linked her arm through mine and we returned to our seats. Wallis and Bo had saved us some peanuts. In the end, our team lost, by a lot, but Cricket stood and applauded them anyway.

Twenty-Nine

To Melinda Darley’s office, with the entourage. We rolled deep, feeling the occasion required a show of strength.

It had been a week since Miles’s team—our team—had been trounced by hers in baseball, and although the conversation with my mother had left me a bit rattled, slipping back into my office and my work had given me a renewed sense of purpose.

As we marched through the tunnels underneath the Capitol, interns jumping out of our path, we discussed strategy and topics for disarming small talk.

“Her kids,” Bo offered. “We can always bullshit about them.”

“No mention of kids,” I said, sharp. “No mention of Blake.”

“Her dead husband was a Baptist minister,” L.K. said. “Weren’t you raised Baptist, Miles?”

“Lord,” said Miles, “not her kind of Baptist.”

We bypassed the elevators and made for the stairs, Miles’s preference when a busy day’s schedule prevented a workout. I was out of breath by the time we reached Melinda Darley’s floor. Outside her office, flags, obviously, and a few tourists taking pictures of the wall plaque bearing her name and state. Her receptionist, a young woman fresh out of the sorority house, asked us to Please wait just a sec while she made the call.

I wiped my damp palms on my suit pants and tried to gather my wits. I would need them. Melinda Darley was many things, shrewd and ruthless among them. But when we were escorted back to her office a few minutes later, her greetings were cordial. Handshakes. Offers of water, coffee. The Please do sit downs. Your sports team, they’re really something. Gosh, this weather.

Once the pleasantries had been dispatched, Miles began. He was in one of the armchairs—upholstered a jarring shade of chartreuse—in front of her dark wood desk. From the matching love seat in the corner where Bo and I sat, perched, ready for battle, I thought smugly how awful her taste was. “Off the record,” he said. “Are you sure you want to get inside this administration? We’ve seen what it’s like over there.”

“The reports, I believe, are grossly exaggerated,” replied Melinda. Her dress and lips both burgundy, she sat with fingers tented under her chin, framed by a window with aluminum blinds, her loose papers stacked perfectly in three piles by her right elbow.

“Don’t think someone won’t try to smear you,” Miles said. “Whatever bodies you have buried will be exhumed.”